


Oasis

by superyuui



Category: Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Depression, Dimension Travel, F/M, Fake Science, KuroFai Olympics 2015, M/M, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-31
Updated: 2015-08-31
Packaged: 2018-04-18 08:12:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4698731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/superyuui/pseuds/superyuui
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All Fai wanted was a good night's sleep. Transporting to another world and living a double-life came in at a close second.<br/>My fill for the Dreamwidth KuroFai 2015 Olympics as part of Team Sci-Fi, prompt [Apocalypse].</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm reposting this almost directly from the version I had up on Dreamwidth, and I hope to go through and tweak bits and then actually get it finished!

_“Three weeks and I hadn’t slept. Three weeks without sleep, and everything becomes an out-of-body experience. My doctor said, ‘Insomnia is just the symptom of something larger. Find out what’s actually wrong. Listen to your body.’_

_I just wanted to sleep.”_ \- Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club, 1996.

-

The streetlight outside the window was flickering.

This was a new development, and was the most exciting thing to happen to Fai all night.

He lay sprawled across his brother’s sofa, his neck pressed into the hard corner of the arm, the annoying flickering streetlight interrupting his perfect burned-into-the-retinas view of the TV. He was too hot in all of the places that skin touched sofa, trapped air superheating itself to nuclear levels, too cold everywhere else, and it had occurred to him multiple times that he’d be more comfortable if he moved.

Easier thought than done.

Fai closed his eyes and the TV screen - ‘currently not broadcasting’ - turned negative.

He woke, however much later, to Yuui tapping him on the ankle.

“Budge up,” his twin sighed, ragged from his late shift. Fai blinked up at him, groggy beyond measure, “Oh, sorry, I thought you were awake,”

Fai made room for Yuui by moving his legs out of the way. Yuui slumped back heavily, Fai put his legs across his brother’s lap and groped around blindly for his phone. It was late - or really early, depending on whose sleep pattern you were considering.

“I’m guessing you didn’t sleep last night,” Yuui said. He was already one with the sofa, TV remote balanced on Fai’s shins, channel surfing.

“No, I got loads of sleep.” Fai replied sardonically, “I just didn’t get any rest,”

Yuui paused. Fai felt it coming, the sense of impending doom. Evisceration by interrogation.

“Did you ring that number?"

“No,”

“Why not?”

“Because,” Fai grumbled, “I don’t want strangers poking around in my head like I’m their lab rat.”

“And this is better?” Yuui asked, throwing out his hands, gesturing around them.

Once Yuui’s clean, pristine, unlived in living room, it was now littered with empty crisp packets, coke cans, bottles of alcohol, and God only knew what else. There was a dartboard on the floor, balanced almost upright against the wall, and out of it stuck anything that had been vaguely pointy and within Fai’s reach. Yuui had started looking to it for cutlery.

Days ago - Fai didn’t know how many, hadn’t kept track - fed up with his twin brother’s behaviour, Yuui had come in from town and shoved his phone into Fai’s face.

“The University are looking for insomniacs to participate in an experimental treatment,” he had gushed, so that it was all practically one word, and since then had not gotten off of Fai’s case about it (despite Fai’s protest that he wasn’t even a proper insomniac). Yuui said it was because he was worried; Fai thought it was because he wanted his bachelorhood back.

“What if I do the trial with you?” Yuui suggested. Fai recoiled at the thought.

“You sleep fine!”

“I do,” Yuui said, “but I rang them today - don’t give me that look - I rang them today and they said that it’d be interesting to have twins in the experiment, as like a … placebo, control group kind of thing,”

“No. Absolutely not.”

“So, will you call them?”

Fai pressed his lips together and glared at the TV. Currently not broadcasting.

“Fine, then I’ll do it on my own,”

“They won’t accept you on your own!”

“They don’t know which of us is which,”

Fai paused, mouth open, ready to retaliate. He snapped his jaw shut and glared at his brother, who grinned sunnily at him.

“I knew you were the evil twin.”

-

Ultimately, Yuui’s threat was all it took to get Fai off of the sofa, into the shower and out of the front door. Fai swayed from side to side, one hand holding the overhead bar in a white-knuckled grip, the other held equally tightly in his pocket, crumpled written directions buried in his fist. He didn’t really like catching the bus - didn’t like being so close to so many bodies, didn’t like feeling millions of eyes on every inch of his skin - and he was looking forward to the second he could be free of the stuffy, sweaty shared air.

Originally, he had planned to walk the distance to the University. It wasn’t really that far - half an hour’s walk, maybe forty-five minutes - but the bedcovers had been heavy that morning, the mattress magnetic. He didn’t think the trial would help any more than the useless, ineffective medication had, and in Fai’s mind, it wasn’t worth the effort. Yuui had been hovering incessantly, had wheedled the appointment date and time out of his brother, and Fai feared that he would subject himself to the same torture Fai was going to be put through. Probably.

Fai ended up disembarking a few stops early, before he suffocated. He was going to be late regardless, and they weren’t going to believe that he overslept (why would they? The shadows under his eyes didn’t exactly make him look well-rested), so he might as well.

The town was busy, but at least here he could be gone before anyone could really see him. At least here, he wasn’t trapped. At least walking gave him less time to think.

Fai had visited the University before (years ago, when Universities had been important to him beyond the teams on University Challenge), and he felt sick at the familiarity of it all. Everything pristine as if it hadn’t been there for centuries, as though it hadn’t been claiming bodies and souls and minds like some kind of malevolent presence, the students looking so haggard and worn and exhausted that he actually fit in amongst them. He would have turned and run and never looked back, had he not caught sight of Yuui’s face in his reflection.

Fai steeled himself, took a deep breath, slapped on his most charming smile, and approached the reception desk.

He owed it to Yuui, at least.

-

In the end, they hadn’t minded that he was late (had been running late themselves) and they hadn’t minded that he didn’t bring his built-in control-specimen of a twin brother, and bit by bit, Fai’s smile came easier to him. The forms they had him fill out were daunting, outlining risk upon risk, questioning the health of his mother’s grandfather’s cat and whether he was allergic to peanuts or bees or the love of another human being.

The young faced, bright eyed scientists explained the trial to him, and what they’d have to do before they could start. Fai recognised various machines, and was mentally taking apart their brand-new MRI machine in the corner of the room when he probably should have been listening. If the baby scientists minded, he couldn’t see it on them. Couldn’t see anything on them really, it had been too long since he’d last analysed anything but his own face. At one point (Fai wasn’t sure when; hadn’t kept track of the time) they asked if they could record him resting and napping and when would the best time for him be? Their smiles grew into grins when he said of course, that he could sleep any time they wanted, that now was okay, he didn’t have any commitments.

Fai tried not to watch them as they patched diodes all over him, and as his drowsy eyelids finally closed, their faces twisted and morphed.

Two weeks later, when Fai could ride the bus for the whole journey and make it through the lobby without getting nauseous and the exercise book they had given him to last him the month was full to the brim (margins, covers and all) with his dreams, they finally told Fai they were ready to start the real trial.

-

“How did it go?”

“It was okay. They watched me sleep.”

“Creepy,”

“You have no idea.”


	2. Chapter 2

Scorched trees blurred past him as he ran, kicking up dust clouds from under his feet. Sand was getting caught in his throat and in his eyes but he couldn’t stop; it was practically breathing down his neck, practically on top of him, practically slicing through his skin with its sharp mandibles, or pincers, or whatever they were.

Blonde hair whipped around his face, the dry dead trees cracking loudly behind him under the monster’s weight, the ground vibrating under Fai with every heavy step.

Someone shouted and Fai ducked before he even realised he had processed the words, the ground rushing up to meet him and a mouthful of dust for his effort. A heavy gust of air swept overhead, raising the hairs on the back of his neck, and an indescribable screech ripped through the forest. Fai covered his ears and clamped his eyes shut, heart pounding frantically inside his chest.

“ _MOVE!_ ” the voice shouted again, prompting Fai to action. He dragged himself up and forward, gritty dust sticking to the sweat on his palms. He hid behind a broken tree stump, ears ringing, chest heaving, his senses in complete overload. The ground shook again, nearly unseating Fai entirely, another spine-tingling screech permeating the air and making the hair on his arms prickle.

The thick dust cleared, and it took a moment, but Fai soon realised that the remaining tremors rumbling through him were not coming from the ground. His heart thrummed and hammered under his palm. He couldn’t breathe - the air was too thick, too hot, the sun was too bright.

“Hey, are you even listening?” a voice, the same one from before, the same one that had saved his life, snapped suddenly. Fai flinched and jumped in the opposite direction as if to run again, and a rough hand grabbed him by the hem of his shirt, yanking him back down to the ground.

“Stay,” the angry voice - and the angry man that it belonged to - commanded. Every instinct Fai had told him to obey. Fai’s eyes followed sluggishly as warm, rough hands took Fai’s own with surprising gentleness, lifting it away from Fai’s chest. Blood dripped, thick and red, from his palm. He hadn’t even noticed that he’d injured himself. The voice said something again, but underneath the buzzing in his ears, the words slipped away from Fai altogether.

The stranger, cloaked in black and spattered with blood, sat in front of Fai on the dusty hard ground, the sun beating down on them, and carefully and meticulously picked shards of bark and rock and glass from Fai’s hand. Fai could do nothing but watch, paralysed by fear and confusion, his bleeding palm inside the stranger’s own the only part of him not shuddering with adrenaline.

“Thank you,” Fai murmured, when he finally found his voice. The stranger grunted noncommittally, rinsing Fai’s hand out with water from a hip flask.

“Next time,” the man said, gruffly, “don’t be dumb enough to wander around kaiju territory without any weapons,”

Fai frowned, not entirely sure what to say. “I guess I got a little bit… disorientated.”

Mr. Black pressed his lips together tightly, and his red eyes flicked up, fixing Fai with his piercing stare. He got to his feet - he was tall, and that was a lot when it came from Fai, who was usually the one looming over people - and a shadow fell across Fai’s face. Fai’s rescuer stood there a moment, haloed by the sun, considering him.

“I’m… I’m Fai,” Fai said stupidly, not entirely recognising the awe in his voice.

“Kurogane.” the stranger answered. Fai swallowed against a dry tongue and glanced at his hand, which still stubbornly bled, albeit at a much slower pace.

“Thanks for saving me,” He said softly. The stranger - Kurogane - nodded once. All of a sudden, he turned his head and spoke into his shoulder.

“Kid! Bandages!”

Fai wondered a moment if the stranger had lost his marbles, until his eyes focused on a small badge on Kurogane’s collar. It was round, and metallic, and was covered in a wire mesh, as if it was a tiny microphone.

Well, maybe it was a microphone. Not long after Kurogane spoke, A boy, no older than 14 or 15 years old, rushed out towards them from behind the line of trees (and Fai jumped again. His nerves were a hot mess, really). He made to run right up to where Fai was still slumped against the withered tree stump, but he stopped in his tracks when Kurogane held up a hand. A look was traded between the Kurogane and the teenager, indecipherable to Fai, before the teenager passed Kurogane a roll of bleach-white cloth. Kurogane wrapped Fai’s hand, and the boy continued to eye him curiously from his distance. He looked nothing like Kurogane in terms of genetics, but he had the same weary look in his eyes, the same layers of dust caked into his skin and clothes.

“Can you walk?” Kurogane asked, having finished patching Fai’s hand up. Fai wasn’t sure he could, but clambered to his wobbly legs nonetheless. His hand throbbed at his side, and he flexed his fingers to ease the pain. The kid was still staring at him, only averting his wide, inquisitive gaze when Fai gave him a quick smile.

The three of them stood there for a long moment. Kurogane folded his arms, and the kid kept looking between the two of them. Fai couldn’t help but feel as if he had missed something.

“Well, where are we going?” Kurogane snapped, and Fai jumped in surprise.

“What?”

“Where did you come from?” Kurogane said slowly, bitingly, his eyes narrowed against the sun, “We’ll walk you back.”

“It’s dangerous to go alone,” the kid supplied. He was soft-spoken, unlike his companion (his father? Brother?), but confident, and if the situation were any less serious, Fai probably would have sniggered at his choice of words.

“Oh, right,” Fai exclaimed, turning around to face the direction he had come from, “well, I-...” he trailed off, the smile falling off of his face, a deep frown etched into his eyebrows. He remembered running from the beast - the ‘kaiju’, but nothing much before that. Nothing at all before that, really. He turned back around, smiling sheepishly.

“I don’t remember,”

It had gone down about as well as Fai had expected. Neither man nor boy believed him, that much was obvious, but they seemed to just… go with it, regardless. The boy was outwardly more suspicious than Kurogane was, but that might just be an age thing. Either way, he was happy enough to walk up front alongside Fai (who could feel red-hot eyes on the back of his neck, even with the scorching hot sun beating down on them from overhead) and chat to him about harmless things. His name was Syaoran, and Kurogane had taken him on as his only pupil, but teaching him what, Fai didn’t find out; it was at that point that Kurogane had cleared his throat, and Syaoran stopped talking before he, presumably, gave something away. Fai continued smiling as if he hadn’t noticed - he wasn’t very much in a position to be picking fights with strangers, and armed ones at that.

They had not travelled far over the burned plains before the earth became lush again underfoot, the trees tall and healthy and green, the forest carpeted in what would have been bluebells if they weren’t a pretty pink colour instead, eery silence replaced with birdsong. Fai hadn’t asked where they were going, which was something he started to regret the more he thought of it. Not that he would have been able to navigate the strange world, anyway: trees were trees, and each direction looked the same as all of the others to him. At least the tall canopies of leaves provided much-needed shade from the sun; it had been so long since Fai had been exposed to so much sunlight, he knew that he was going to burn for it. He was relieved to be wearing light colours - a white shirt, thin jeans - and marveled at his escorts’ (captors, part of him suggested) ability to wear all black and pretty much all dark green and brown on such a hot day.

Fai wasn’t sure how long they had been walking - how many pastures and fields they had walked through, how many creeks they had crossed - when the sky started to darken, and Fai felt unavoidable exhaustion.

-

Fai woke with a start, not in a field or under the open sky like he had been when he fell asleep, but under fluorescent light on a cushioned mattress.

“Good morning, mister Fluorite,” someone chirped, and Fai squinted in their direction. Heels clicked on the tile floor as they approached - Fai recognised her; she was one of the scientists. She was part of the trial Fai was in, she was in charge of monitoring him (and the other participants, wherever they might be). She drew level with him and starting plugging away at a keyboard near to Fai’s head. Connected to Fai’s head. He exhaled shakily.

“It looks like you had a good sleep last night,” she commented, and Fai was stunned to realise that she was right. Usually he slept for hours and hours and hours and feel like he didn’t even have the energy to wake up in the morning, but seven or eight hours of actual sleep and he felt like a new man. He laughed.

“I’d forgotten what that was like!”

“I’m sure you did,” she said sympathetically, and Fai’s smile fell. The only people that ever sounded like that were… Doctors. Paramedics. Counsellors. Yuui.

Fai swallowed thickly against the weight in his belly.

“Can I leave soon? My brother will be waiting up for me.”

“Of course. Let me just finish writing this up, and we’ll see you again this evening.”

-

Yuui sighed, throwing himself down onto the couch. The bags under his eyes were deep, deep enough to drown in. Deep enough to match Fai’s. Work had been hard on him, and Fai had been harder. Fai leaned down from where he sat and started working Yuui’s heavy boots off of his feet.

“How did the trial go?” Yuui asked sleepily.

“It was okay,” Fai said, as usual. He paused for a moment before continuing, “actually, it was kind of weird…”

Yuui moved slightly, opening bleary eyes, “What was?”

“My dream,” Fai said, “my dream was… I don’t remember a lot of it, but I remember…” Fai closed his eyes, the dream-land appearing behind them like a fond memory. An abandoned countryside, overrun with weeds and trees and smelling of hot sand. Dark clouds in the sky, a crackle in the air that made his skin tingle. Ten-foot-tall monsters with spindly legs and blocky bodies, and scales that glinted in the sun like black steel.

“You remember…?” Yuui prompted, from a thousand miles away.

“I was being chased,” Fai murmured, “I was running, and everything was red,” he trailed off, and opened his eyes again.

Yuui frowned at him for a moment before shrugging, “Your stress dreams are the weirdest. You ought to sell them to M. Night Shyamalan.”

Fai looked away, heat rising to his cheeks. “Hah, yeah...”

Yuui nudged Fai with the side of his leg. Fai brushed him off, gathering Yuui’s boots in his arms and getting to his feet.

“Hey,” Yuui called after him when he was halfway out the door. Fai paused, and Yuui spoke after he realised Fai wasn’t going to come back. “I’m glad you’re doing this,” he said, quietly.

Fai lingered for a moment, and then he was gone.

-

 


	3. Chapter 3

When Fai woke the next time, he was indoors again, but it wasn’t anywhere that he recognised. He had forgotten about the dream world while he had been awake, but the feeling of heat pressing against his skin, and the smell of the earth was unmistakable.

Fai sat up slowly and paused, waiting for the dark, dusty room to catch up with him. He groaned softly under his breath, and lifted his throbbing hand up to his forehead. He was thirsty enough to drain a reservoir, and had the headache to go with it. There was a canister next to Fai’s mattress - he didn’t want to call it a futon, because that would have been generous - and an experimental slosh proved fruitful. The water inside was clean, and cool, and cleared his head like magic.

He looked up, easily this time. The room wasn’t very large, but it was homey - or, at least, it _tried_ to be homey. Paint that was probably originally a nice, robin’s egg blue, was now faded and dull and peeling from the walls. Threadbare curtains hung limply over a window, the bright sunlight glowing through them, the distant sound of voices travelling through the glass. Someone had gathered sweet-smelling lavender into a vase, balanced on top of what looked like car and computer parts. Fai knew machines; he had been taking things apart to see how they worked since he was a young child, and upon closer inspection, he quickly realised that these were not much like anything he’d ever seen before. He jumped out of his skin when the door behind him opened, and a tall middle-aged man walked through.

“You’re awake,” the man’s cheery voice exclaimed, and it was such a perfect repeat of the _last time_ Fai had woken up this way that he laughed before he could stop himself. The new person, if he was bemused, hid it very well, and sat on the floor across from Fai, setting down the tray he was carrying so that it was between them. He had the same rugged, dusty look about him that Kurogane and Syaoran had had, the same “make-do-and-mend” clothes. He started eating enthusiastically (Fai got the impression that he did everything enthusiastically) and gestured at Fai to join him.

“Eat, eat, eat! My honey made these sandwiches, so they’re delicious, of course!”

Fai smiled and did so and-- augh augh _ew_. Fish sandwiches? WHY?? He swallowed hard and carefully placed the rest of the sandwich on his knee, taking a big gulp of water to wash it down.

“Um, I don’t believe we’ve been introduced…?” Fai said politely, trying to distract his host from staring at the abandoned sandwich. There was a frightening moment where Fai feared it hadn’t worked - the man’s focus hadn’t shifted an inch! - but then the man grinned at him again.

“I’m Sorata!” he boomed, “and unless ‘this idiot’ is actually what you’re called, they didn’t tell me your name either,”

“I’m Fai,” Fai replied, somewhat shortly. Sorata laughed and clapped him on the shoulder.

“Don’t worry about it! The chief’s a good guy, but he’s not the best with people,” he said. Fai’s eyes widened in surprise.

“Kurogane’s a chief?”

Sorata hummed and put a hand to his chin, face screwing up in thought.

“You could say that, officially, he isn’t, but…”  Sorata said enigmatically, before sighing and giving Fai an exaggerated shrug, “he’s a good leader, and I guess that’s all we need him to be.”

Fai nodded slowly, and Sorata clapped his shoulder again. Fai wished he would stop; it was starting to sting.

“Anyway, Fai, you’re staying here until chief figures out what to do with you.”

“Where is ‘here’, exactly?” Fai asked.

Sorata exhaled at length, folding his arms and nodding vigorously. He produced a hand puppet version of himself (from where, Fai had no idea) and launched into an animated explanation.

“This town is called ‘Oasis’, named for its proximity to numerous natural freshwater springs in an otherwise dry desert wasteland,” Sorata said, manipulating the puppet as if it was the one talking, “We have three distinct seasons here; dry, damp, and flood-” (here, Sorata covered the tiny puppet’s mouth with his hand and told Fai in a stage-whisper that those were not the formal names for the seasons, but they were what everyone called them regardless. Fai nodded indulgently at both Sorata and the hand puppet version of Sorata), “- and Oasis is fortunate to have many natural resources close by. Kaiju attacks are rare here because of the thick forest surrounding three sides of the town, leaving only the fourth side in need of reinforcements.”

“I have a question,” Fai said, raising his hand and addressing the puppet, not sure which action was more ridiculous, “What are kaiju? I’ve never come across such things before.”

At this, it seemed, Sorata really was flummoxed.

“Chief wasn’t kidding when he said you must have bumped your head,”

Fai didn’t know how to react to that, so he just smiled and shrugged. Sorata nodded again seriously, and got to his feet.

“Eat up; I’ll show you around!”

-

Whatever Fai was expecting the village to look like, it certainly wasn’t what he was actually faced with upon leaving Sorata’s house.

Houses made of scrap metal and splintered wood sat side by side, held together by twine and lumpy cement on top of the dusty, crumbling road. A few of the houses - the wooden ones, mostly - had paint flaking off of them in the dry heat. A canopy of clotheslines were strung between the roofs, a light breeze stirring the clothes hanging from them. The air felt fresh, despite the heat, and flowers and grasses were flourishing, despite the dust. Fai breathed deeply into his lungs.

“Amazing, isn’t it?” Sorata said proudly, interrupting Fai’s observations. Fai shielded his eyes from the sun to glance over at Sorata, making sure his expression was appropriately awed.

Sorata seemed to buy it, and he lead Fai away towards a denser cluster of buildings, talking and pointing things out as he went. There were many shops and many people - again, more than what Fai was expecting - and passersby smiled and greeted Sorata. Many of them were politely interested in Fai, and didn’t react negatively when Sorata told them next to nothing about him. Sorata himself seemed to take everything in stride. Fai wondered if he’d done this before.

“You aren’t the first we’ve pulled from the Scorchlands,” Sorata said, when Fai asked, “First with half his brain gone missing, but you’re not so different than the others.

“We’re a big community, and a good one,” Sorata went on to explain,  “we look out for our own; there’s too many monsters around and too much work to do to start fighting amongst ourselves. That being said…” he stopped and faced Fai square on, all previous cheeriness and approachability gone from his face, as if he were a different person altogether. Fai was rooted to the spot in front of him, “if you’re looking to start trouble, and you think this town would be an easy score,” Sorata’s voice dropped low, his face darkened, and Fai felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle, “we will hunt you down _like dogs_. Understood?”

Fai swallowed, eyes wide, and nodded jerkily. Instantly, Sorata’s wide grin was back, and he clapped Fai on the shoulder again. Fai was surprised he didn’t have facial whiplash. “Good! Now, then, I promised the chief I’d take you to him after your ‘orientation’. We should find him before the grapevine does.”

-

They had walked in the exact opposite direction to the one Fai had expected, but Fai was starting to accept that nothing would be quite what he expected in this place. Sorata lead Fai towards the edge of the town that wasn’t protected by the treeline, the only part of town that was seamlessly fortified and reinforced against attack. The imposing silhouette of Kurogane - or the chief? Fai wasn’t sure what to call him - was stood in front of groups of people, all of them running drills. Fai watched the (troops, he assumed) move in unison, awed by the perfection in every single tiny movement. They were more like an intricately-crafted machine than human.

Sorata called out to Kurogane ( _‘Chief’? ‘Kurogane’?_ ) who, when he turned to face them, Fai realised was much more aesthetically pleasing than he had first thought. That was another uncommon sensation for Fai; the twist in his belly was simultaneously enjoyable and terrifying.

“Have you been listening?”

Fai jumped out of his own head for the second time in less than an hour to find both Sorata and Chief Kurogane - black eyes and red - staring at him.

“Yes I have-” Kurogane? Chief? No, Kurogane. Kurogane. “Kuro-chief.”

Great. Good job Fai; 10/10.

Kurogane had gone red in the face. Fai clapped his hands over his eyes (he was so mortified that he had rendered himself speechless) and anything else that could have been said was drowned out by Sorata’s rambunctious laughter. As if to rub salt in the wound, Sorata cheerily suggested that the name ought to catch on, as it was shorter than Kurogane’s actual name, in the loudest voice he was able to.

Fai looked up through his fingers. Kurogane was still glaring at him, but he didn’t seem to be in overload any more. Fai grinned sheepishly, by way of apology.

“It’s just Kurogane,” Kurogane said, the look in his eyes promising Fai that this wouldn’t be forgotten. Fai only grinned wider, “Sorata can finish with you. I’ve heard all I need.”

Later, when Fai asked him about it, Sorata explained that his job (as well as being the primary school’s headteacher) was to meet the new people and figure out if they were a threat or not. The fact that the chief had then let Fai go was a good a sign as any; as long as he worked hard and toed the line, there was a place for him at Oasis.

Fai just wasn’t sure what he could offer that they would need.

\--

“What the hell is that?”

“Press the switch.” Fai said, and Yuui did. The lightbulb lit up.

“Congratulations, you just saved about eighty pence on your electric bill for the month.”

“Good, that’ll pay for the ruined potatoes.” Yuui joked, “We were going to have those for dinner, you know,"

“Eh,” Fai replied, shrugging, “I kind of had my eye on the takeaway menus anyway,”

“Sure you did,” Yuui swatted at Fai, grinning, “Is your hand any better?"

“Yeah,” Fai glanced at his palm, where a deep, jagged scratch was healing. Fai flexed it; it still stung, “wish I could remember how it happened,” he said quietly. The scratch stood out, an angry red line against his pale skin. It had been bothering him for a week, and he knew he ought to remember getting it. You don’t just get cut up like that and forget about it.

“I’m going for a drink with some work colleagues later,” Yuui said from the other room, his voice carrying easily through the small flat, “Wanna come along?”

“Nah,” Fai replied after a moment, twirling a dart between the fingertips on his other hand, “you deserve a night off,”

“Don’t say that,” Yuui chided softly, “you aren’t a chore. Well, most of the time you’re not.”

“Yeah, yeah. Laugh it up, little brother.” Fai threw the dart. Bullseye. Yuui, on his way back out of the front door, immediately pronounced him a showoff. Fai called after him to be home before bedtime.

-


	4. Chapter 4

The regular sleeping schedule, and the actual _restful sleep_ , were doing wonders for Fai’s overall health. He no longer dragged himself, exhausted, through the day, feeling tense and restless and irritated. He felt light, like he was floating. He was a changed man. He went on walks _for fun_.

Fai was starting to feel content and happy, just from being alive. It was a strange feeling, but it was one that was more than welcome. As time passed, he found that he was able to recall more and more about Oasis every day. Yuui badgered him about it constantly, and if he found it strange that Fai was dreaming of the same place every night, as if it was another life that Fai was living, he didn’t say.

“What’re you reading?” Yuui asked conversationally. Fai looked up from the heavy book, blinking his eyes back into focus.

“Oh, er… it’s about, like… Solar Power, and how energy is used from the photons that the Sun creates to charge cells,”

“Right,” Yuui said at length, passing Fai a hot mug, “you hate Physics,”

“I think that it’s technically electrochemistry. And I don’t hate Physics,” Fai replied defensively, taking a sip of tea and sighing happily. Yuui’s tea was always perfect.

“That’s funny, because you weren’t saying that when we finished school,” Yuui teased, “I remember Alex spent the night trying to get off with you and you were just ranting the whole time about how the Physics course came straight from Satan’s ballsack.”

“That was A-Level Physics,” Fai dismissed, waving a hand, “and it worked, because Alex gave up before I did,”

“I think that was the first time you got really hammered,”

“That was the first time I _needed_ to get really hammered,”

Yuui snorted, “so, that brings me back to ‘why are you studying solar power?’”

Fai thought for a moment, pausing to scratch an itch on his scalp. “I don’t know… we’re living unsustainably right now... if I want to start building robots and sentient toasters again, I need to make it future-proof.”

Yuui perked up right away. “You’re thinking of going back to school?”

Fai shut the book slowly, frowning. “I’m not sure.” He said, and looked up to see a mirroring frown on his brother’s face.

“Did something happen?”

“Nothing bad happened,” Fai said evasively. Yuui stared him down, and Fai’s shoulders slumped in defeat. “I got cornered by my old supervisor the other day, on my way out of the trial room. I think he thought I was there to… reapply, or something. I didn’t have the heart to correct him.” Fai explained glumly. A long moment passed, Yuui on the edge of his seat, his lips pressed shut, the worry in his eyes burning Fai’s skin.

“Just… don’t rush into anything. Please?”

“I won’t,” Fai reassured him, squeezing his hand. “I think I learned my lesson the first time around.”

\--

“Sorata?” Fai called out, elbow-deep in the pile of machine parts that he had noticed on his first morning, “Do you need any of this?”

For Fai, it had been three days since his conversation with Yuui. In that time, he had spent every waking moment on his new hobby, and had managed to cobble together some rudimentary solar power units. They didn’t provide much in the way of electricity, but he figured that if he made enough of them in Oasis, that the residents would manage to get some good use out of them. He heard footsteps, heavy on the wooden floors, approach him.

“Oh, that? That stuff’s mostly junk; none of it works.” Sorata said after a moment, from the doorway, “it’d have been dumped years ago if Arashi hadn’t stopped me…”

Fai held a motherboard in his hands. He assumed it was a motherboard, anyway; all the parts he’d expect - processor socket, RAM, all the power pins - were there, but so were a bunch of other things that made absolutely no sense to him. Under it sat what looked like a sheaf of glass. Fai smiled and carefully extracted the sheet from the mess, wiping the dust off of it.

“Why, do you think it’s worth something?”  
  
“I’m not sure,” Fai said slowly, still smiling, carefully setting what he hoped was an old solar cell down on his mattress, “I might be able to get it working again, but I’ll need some things first,”

“What sort of things?” Sorata asked, crouching down next to Fai and poking around in the pile.

Fai hummed thoughtfully, unclipping wires from other components. “Things like more of those panels, crocodile clips, soldering wire… a soldering _iron_ …” he trailed off. The more he thought about it, the less likely it seemed he’d find everything. Fai hoped he’d be able to substitute other things for them. “It won’t generate enough electricity to power the whole town, but you won’t have to worry about finding fresh batteries any more.”

Sorata hummed and stroked his chin with a hand, eyebrows furrowed.

“To tell you the truth,” he said, at length, “I’m not sure where you’d find any of that stuff… it sounds like a fantastic idea, though!” Sorata added hastily, upon seeing Fai’s deflated expression, “Imagine that, rechargeable batteries!”

“It’d be pretty useful,” Fai grinned.

“That it would,” Sorata agreed, completely missing the amusement in Fai’s voice, “speaking of useful, we’re all set up.”

Fai inhaled shakily, “Right, for the assessment, of course…”

When the kids of Oasis reached adulthood, they were assessed by the village leaders (the chief and the leader of each sector, such as farming and hunting) to see where they would be the most useful. Fai had expressed no intention of leaving Oasis any time soon (why would he? Even if the place were real, it’s not like he had anywhere else to go) and, as such, needed to be assessed in much the same way. He had known that it was coming, because it was what Sorata greeted him with every morning, but the nerves hit him at that moment like a brick wall. In terms of Oasis, and what was useful there, he didn’t know anything about… well, anything.

A few hours later, Fai stood facing his last test. He had failed the rest of the tests so spectacularly that the majority of the village leaders seemed to have given him up for a bad job. In his defense, he’d never had to care for cattle or crops before, and he had never been able to retain any kind of medical knowledge whatsoever (why would he, when machines were so much more black and white?), so the odds had been stacked against him from the beginning.

In the end, the last test came down to his ability in combat and with weapons. Fai was confident with a bow and arrow (and handguns, to an extent), and years after he and Yuui had stopped having lessons, he could still remember the practised way his body moved, the dull _thunk_ of the arrowhead piercing the target. In terms of precision and accuracy, there was no doubt Fai would pass. Combat situations, however, were just as foreign to him as cow’s udders.

He picked up the bow they’d provided for him, as well as three heavy iron arrows, the feeling so distantly familiar that he half expected to see Yuui beside him as he turned toward the target. The sun beat down on the back of his neck, and Fai was thankful that this time, the leaders were far enough away that he couldn’t hear Sorata trying to persuade them to let Fai stick around, even though he would probably just burden the village with another mouth to feed.

Fai drew the arrow smoothly, with practised motion. Silence fell around him with a breath of air, teasing the hair on the back his neck.

_Thud._

Collectively, his spectators exhaled. Fai swallowed hard, shaking with nerves. The arrow had barely hit the target, and had only shallowly penetrated the woven grasses that the target comprised of.

Fai took his second and third shots back to back, and while the second shot was happily within the inner rings, the third arrow missed the target completely. Immediately, the murmuring started, the four remaining leaders openly discussing Fai’s future in front of everyone else. It felt like school. Fai retrieved his arrows, willing the redness in his face to lessen, and only turned back when he could dawdle no longer.

“Did you see that? Drew the arrows like he’d been doing it his whole life!” Sorata crowed when Fai drew level, his voice carrying far louder than the others, “all it would take is a bit of practise, and he’d be a perfect hunter!”

“Hm,” Kurogane said shortly, his red eyes boring into the side of Fai’s face. Fai hazarded a guess that there was much more going on under the surface of that stare, and so he avoided it as best he could. The other leaders, the ones who had stuck around, looked uncomfortably disappointed. Fai ducked his head.

“Okay, so he can’t shoot a weapon,” or farm, or chop down trees, or forage, “but we have too many fighters in this town as it is. What Fai _can_ do for us will be much more useful.”

“Really?” One of the leaders - Fai didn’t know her name - remarked with disbelief.

Sorata grinned and nudged Fai with his arm. Everyone turned to look at him again. He just wanted to crawl into a dark hole.

“Er, well… I might be able to make electricity," immediately, people started murmuring amongst themselves, and Fai almost had to shout for them to quiet down and let him continue, "I don’t know how much yet; it depends on what components you have around that still work, and, yeah” he said, finishing lamely. Nobody’s expressions changed, and there was a too-long pause after he stopped speaking. One of the leaders snorted and shook his head, and a couple the others rolled their eyes. Fai cast his eyes downwards again, shoulders slumped, and Sorata opened his mouth to argue. Kurogane held up a hand to interrupt him.

“You can really do this?” Kurogane asked, the first thing he had said all afternoon.

“Well,” Fai hedged, “like I said, it depends on the condition of what I can find-”

“We’ve tried to make electricity for years, and nobody has succeeded yet. All of the lines are down; there are no power stations functioning in this country,” another leader challenged, “where do you think this power is going to come from? The sky?” they said incredulously.

Fai nodded, “from the sun, actually,” he said, his voice quiet. Silence fell again, the remaining leaders turning to their chief. Kurogane looked as stern as ever as he considered Fai, and Fai felt his heart hammering frantically in his chest.

“Fine.” Kurogane said eventually, “if you can do what you say, it’ll be a great asset to us. It’d be stupid of me to not give you a shot.”

Fai let out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding, and Sorata whooped next to him. The leaders dispersed, most of them unsatisfied with the result. One of them - the woman who had initially challenged him - unfolded her arms and stepped up to Fai.

“You said you needed components. Get a list to me by the end of the day of what you need, and I’ll see what we have.” she told him, her voice edged with trepidation, “I’m usually in the main Hall. Ask for Kotoko.”

Fai nodded, and shook the hand she offered, “Fai,” he replied. She gripped his hand hard and pulled him nose-to-nose with her.

“Don’t screw this up,” she warned shortly, after a moment of staring him down. Fai blinked, bewildered. Why was every inhabitant of this village so sure he was going to personally murder them all?!

“I’ll… I’ll do my best,” he stammered. Seemingly satisfied, she released him and set off after the others. Fai let out a heavy breath, and jumped when Sorata started talking behind him.

“That Kotoko, huh?” he said, “Don’t worry about her bark, kid. Her bite’s not any worse.”

Fai shook his head slowly, wide-eyed and awed, “I’m not so sure."

-


	5. Chapter 5

“Shit!” Fai swore loudly. Carefully, he placed his fifth attempt at a working solar panel back on his work table, before he made the mistake of throwing it out of frustration and smashing it irreparably. There was no way he was going to pull this off; electronics had never been his thing.

Fai sunk his head into his hands. What could he do? He was missing at least three different pieces of equipment that he needed, and he hadn’t managed to scavenge enough wiring. Not to mention that he had never really tried making enough electricity out of nothing that it could support a town.

Someone knocked lightly on the doorframe behind him. He groaned inwardly.

“Everything alright, Fai?” Arashi, Sorata’s long-suffering (or, probably just ‘suffering’) wife asked him. He nodded silently, and then, not wanting to just lie to her, shook his head instead. She paused and frowned sympathetically.

“Kotoko sent someone asking for you,” Arashi said to him, “they said it was urgent that you go to the Hall and report to her.”

“Yeah,” Fai sighed. Days had passed since he’d agreed to that, of course Kotoko was asking for him. Half-heartedly, he tidied up the mess he had made of the hot glue, changed his shirt and made his way towards the main Village Hall. The town was bustling, as usual, and though he didn’t get the same recognition as Sorata, Fai got his fair share of polite smiles and waves as he passed.

All too soon, he was stood before the Hall’s large doors. Like every other building in the town, it had been repurposed from whatever building it had been before everything had turned to rubble. He took a breath to steel himself and pushed open the heavy doors, stepping out of the sunlight into the relatively dark room.

Someone behind a beaten-up desk jumped to attention.

“You’re the new guy!” they exclaimed, “Wait just a sec!”

Before Fai could say anything, the teenager rushed off, leaving Fai alone in the foyer (apart from a large dog, which regarded him with lazy disinterest. Its tail gave a half-hearted wag when Fai looked its way). He rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet for a moment, rolling and un-rolling the sheaf of paper in his hand. The kid soon returned, all ecstatic energy and enthusiasm.

“Kotoko said to go right in,” the teenager chirped, using a hand to chase the stray hairs out of her eyes, “her office is back there, second on the left.”

“Thank you for your help, miss…?” Fai said, holding out his hand for her to shake.

“Oh,” she exclaimed, suddenly flustered, shaking his hand in her smaller ones, “I’m Yuzuriha,” she said, and then, seemingly losing all self-restraint, “You’re Fai, aren’t you? They found you in the scorch and now you’re making electricity, aren’t you?”

“Uh,” Fai replied, feeling like a rabbit caught in headlights, “I hope so,”

There was a loud shout from somewhere down the hallway, and Fai took it as his cue to leave. He hovered momentarily outside Kotoko’s door, and had raised his fist to knock on the frosted glass when it was swung open forcefully in front of him, the resulting gust of wind shooting through his loose blond hair.

“Are you coming in, or are we going to have this conversation in the hallway?”

“In,” Fai affirmed, scuttling into Kotoko’s office like a berated pet. Kotoko looked much the same as when Fai had met her properly; stern, and coated in desert dust. Fai wondered what _he_ must’ve looked like.

“So, if the lateness of your report is any indication,” Kotoko started brusquely, “I’d guess that you’ve failed.”

Fai wanted to argue and defend himself, but he couldn’t really argue with what was, essentially, true.

“I’m missing a few things,” he admitted instead, and held the rolled-up sheet of paper out to her. Kotoko took it from him, scanning the hastily-scribbled list while Fai talked, “I need a few more pieces of equipment and some more wiring, and -- I’ve drawn what the equipment looks like, in case you and I have different names for these things -- but I spoke with Sorata about it and he didn’t think anything like that was still around, at least not in Oasis.” Fai rambled. Kotoko nodded, still engrossed in his list.

“Sorata knows this town better than most of us,” she agreed, “I haven’t found anything like that here.”

Fai waited in silence, then, for Kotoko to finish examining the paper. She sighed deeply.

“I want to help you. I don’t have a reason to like you personally yet, but if there’s something this town needs, it’s electricity.” Kotoko dropped the list lightly into what looked like her “in” tray, which was already overflowing, “Especially now that other places are starting to figure out how to get theirs working. If we wait too long, we’ll fall behind fast, and that makes us too vulnerable for my liking.”

Kotoko paused again, her eyebrows furrowed and arms folded, staring at her desk. She glanced up again and regarded Fai levelly.

“There’s a lab nearby, from before the First Contact,” she said, and Fai perked up, “most’ve it’s been lost to the monsters, but we’ve managed to get scouts out there once or twice. They never brought anything back, because they didn’t see any use for it. You should find out where it is, and convince some people to go check it out with you. If anywhere has the things you need, it’ll be there.”

Fai nodded, “Thanks, Kotoko. I’ll do that.”

“Don’t thank me,” she retorted, “I’m not doing this for you. To be honest, I don’t think there’s anybody in this town that’s reckless enough to go with you at all.”

It didn’t exactly fill Fai with confidence to hear her say such a thing outright, and it made him feel all the worse when what she was saying turned out to be true.

Fai walked back towards Sorata’s house after nightfall with a sour expression on his face, slightly tipsy from spending the whole afternoon in the pub, trying to persuade just about _anyone_ to help him get to the lab. He was so useless here that he may as well be home. His luck was so bad that he really wasn’t surprised when he ran into the chief again (almost literally), doing one of his nightly patrols. There were more than enough capable soldiers already doing the same thing. Perhaps it helped him feel safe? Maybe he was one of those "if you want it done right, do it yourself" people.

“Kotoko told me about your meeting earlier,” Kurogane said, bypassing greeting Fai at all, “You really need to get the parts from the abandoned lab?”

Fai nodded, fed up and tired of talking about it without actually getting anywhere. “I might give up, to be honest,” he said, “I know I can’t get there alone,”

“Nobody wants to go along?”

Fai shook his head. Kurogane considered him. Fai sobered up under his fierce red gaze, and felt excruciatingly embarrassed about sounding like a petulant child.

Kurogane nodded once. “I’ll take you, if you need these parts so much. I’ve been meaning to scout it again, anyway,” he finished, offhandedly. Fai gaped up at him, eyes wide and mouth hanging open. Kurogane scowled, “I said it before; I’d be stupid to not take this opportunity. Go to sleep, we’ll leave at first light tomorrow.”

“R-right,” Fai stammered, “first light,” he repeated.


	6. Chapter 6

When Fai woke in Oasis again, it was with butterflies in his stomach. He had spent the entirety of his waking day as a nervous mess, and had gotten under Yuui's feet so much that he'd been banned from sugar and caffeine. The jitters stayed all through breakfast enough for Sorata to comment on it, and still the feeling didn't go away. He was an honest mess by the time he had to leave. The mere fact that he didn't just faint upon seeing the chief was a surprise to him.

"Here," Kurogane said, handing Fai a bow and a full quiver, before Fai could so much as say good morning.

"Uh..." Fai held the bow and quiver awkwardly in his arms, "you were there when I failed this part of my test, right, Kuro-chief?"

"That's not my name," Kurogane said reflexively, "and we can't go out in the scorch with you completely unarmed. Take this, too," he passed Fai a holster which held a couple of knives - small when compared to the swords on Kurogane's hip, but larger than anything Fai had ever held in a fight before, "if you can get close to the smaller ones and go for the wiring, that usually does the trick. Leave everything else to me and don't get in the way and you should at least come back alive. They strap on to your thigh, idiot." Kurogane finished, with exasperation at Fai's bewilderment.

"Right, of course they do," Fai huffed under his breath. Whether Kurogane heard him or not, Fai couldn't tell; the young chief had already started off towards the edge of the town. Awkwardly, Fai juggled the equipment, trying to keep up, while simultaneously securing everything to his body.

"Is Syaoran not accompanying us?" Fai asked conversationally when he drew level. He was lucky he almost matched Kurogane in height or he'd never have made it.

"The kid has other stuff to do besides follow me around all day," Kurogane said vaguely, "it's too risky for him right now. We're gonna be going through a pretty hostile area."

Fai's stomach sank. That was just his luck, wasn't it?

They made it through the forest quickly, Kurogane in the lead, and soon they were in the afternoon heat of the desert sun. Fai eyed Kurogane suspiciously.

"I remember that walk taking a lot longer the first time," he said wryly "was that just the scenic route for us tourists?"

Kurogane shot Fai a look over his shoulder; he almost looked amused, and then it was gone again.

"You think I was going to let a complete stranger know the way into my town? That forest is one of our best defences. I'd be a fool to give its secrets away to every lost sheep I find."

"Is that what I am?" Fai replied with a sly grin, feeling brave, "a lost sheep?"

"Nah," Kurogane said. He glanced over at Fai again, definitely looking amused this time, "you're more like a goat. Much more annoying."

Fai grinned and ducked his head. What was this? The surly chief was _flirting_ with him now? Fai's confidence soared at the thought. He was still grinning stupidly to himself when Kurogane threw an arm out to stop him in his tracks. Fai opened his mouth, and Kurogane quickly shushed him. His dark eyebrows were furrowed, and his eyes were focused far in the distance. They had come to a steady slope, at the bottom of which began what looked like an old highway. It had fallen far into disrepair, the Tarmac cracked and crumbling from age.

"Looks quiet," Kurogane said after a tense moment, "don't get reckless out here, though. There aren't a lot of hiding places any more."

Fai nodded, swallowing against his fear, and followed Kurogane down the slope. He had to concentrate hard just to keep his footing, as a lot of the remaining Tarmac was loose and had the tendency of lurching and slipping underfoot. Kurogane moved easily on this landscape, Fai reasoned that the man had live in such a wasteland for his whole life, and would have learned to walk in such an environment from the very beginning. It was nothing like the smooth pavements and roads that Fai had grown up with, that was for sure. It'd be very easy for him to fall and sprain his ankles, or worse.

It wasn't much longer before Fai could feel the effect of the sun beating down on him, and the tingling in his skin. He was probably going to end up with a wicked sunburn. Fantastic.

Fai's feet ached from all of the dust that had gotten into his shoes, and his back had gone numb in the places that the bow had been bouncing heavily against him with each step. He had been honestly surprised to get given a bow again so soon, after his spectacular failure on the training grounds, and the more he considered it, the stranger it seemed.

"Hey, Kuro-chief," Fai said, his voice breaking the silence, "you never did give me a real reason for this," he indicated the bow on his shoulder when Kurogane turned to him out of curiosity.

"Sorata said you drew the arrows like a pro," Kurogane replied, "and he was right. I don't know what the reason is for you throwing the assessment like you did, but if this wild goose chase pays off, I won't have to care either. Doesn't mean I'm going to let you pretend you won't be able to defend yourself."

"What if this was my plan? Convince you that I'm harmless, and then lure you into the desert alone to kill you. It'd probably work,"

"Yeah, it would." Kurogane admitted, "but you never convinced me that you're harmless, you just showed me that you're a coward. Cowards don't go making enemies of powerful clans."

Fai flinched minutely, stung by the analysis.

So much for flirting.

They walked for a couple of hours in silence, Kurogane on edge the whole time, his eyes darting this way and that. Fai gave up on polite conversation fairly quickly when it didn't look like Kurogane's mood would change any time soon.

Soon after, when Fai could no longer deny that his skin was well and truly burnt, Kurogane raised a hand, pointing towards the horizon. "That's our destination,"

Fai followed Kurogane's finger, shielding his eyes with a hand, and saw what seemed to be a bunker tucked into the base of a hill.

"Is it much further?" He asked, trying to sound as un-whiny as possible.

"Another couple of hours, I'd say."

Fai nodded tiredly, his hands on his hips, sweat dripping down his back and sand sticking to his face. Kurogane nudged him on the arm, offering him a swig of his cantine. The water inside was clean and cool, and Fai nearly drained the rest of it down his face. His own flask was hanging half empty and warm from his hip. They paused for a quick lunch of dried, salted meat and fruit before setting off again, Fai on his second wind. Or fourth, or fifth.

There were moments where they heard sounds on the wind - sounds like creaking floorboards and shouting and fireworks - and Kurogane went on full alert like a guard dog, but they eventually made it to the bunker on "good time" (Fai glared at Kurogane for that, wishing he'd been warned about how far it was). They were faced with something that reminded Fai about when he had learned about World War 2 in school as a child, and what he had only ever seen the ruins of in the countryside from train windows. The bunker was as imposing as it was brilliantly constructed. Time had half-buried it in sand and dirt, and they had to clear away a good portion of it from the entrance before they could actually get in.

"It's locked," Fai said, having groped the door all over looking for a handle or switch of some kind. Kurogane reached past him, a scuffed plastic card in his hands, and swiped it fast in the crack of the door. Something beeped, and something else groaned, and the door slowly and laboriously slid open on rusted tracks.

"A digital lock?" Fai remarked incredulously. These people hadn't found power anywhere, or so they said, but they had such things as digital, card-operated, locks?

"This place is older than all of us. It took some of our smartest people to figure out what that card did; don't ask me how it works."

Kurogane ducked his head inside the dark bunker for a moment. Fai couldn't see anything; compared to the sunny desert, the inside of the bunker was a black hole. Kurogane's upper half emerged, and he jerked his head at Fai.

"Come see what you think."

The inside of the bunker was musty, and everything was covered in more dust than Fai had ever seen in his life, but the stagnant air was so much cooler than the air outside that Fai felt he could have happily lived in there. He stood in the doorway, waiting for his eyes to adjust, blinking sunspots out of his vision.

Fai reached down towards the shapes as they formed; stacks of boxes on the floor, old, rickety desks on which stood shattered CRT monitors. Fai grabbed one of the small, metal boxes off of a desk and wiped the glue-like layers of dust from it. He snorted to himself and shook his head.

"What?" Kurogane barked, "what is it?"

Fai jumped. He'd forgotten for a second that he wasn't alone, "Uh, it's uh," he shook his head, grinning, "it's a power supply, for like, a really powerful computer. More powerful than I've ever seen."

"Can we use it?"

"Maybe?" Fai said brightly over his shoulder, squinting against the bright light, "I need to see if it still works, but I might be able to do something with it."

Kurogane nodded, "Good. Keep looking."

Fai smirked, lifting the lid off of one of the boxes. "Aye, sir," he replied sarcastically, sure that he felt Kurogane bristle in response.

The box was full of computer parts, ones that looked like they'd go with what he had found in Sorata's house. It was great, and he'd find it useful in the future.

"What was this place?" he wondered aloud. Kurogane's silhouette appeared in the doorway again.

"We think it was here before the First Contact," he said, "we were going to use it as our base, but it's too far away from all the clean water in Oasis to be viable right now,"

"What was the First Contact?" Fai asked. He couldn't see Kurogane's face where it was cast in shadow, but the pause before he replied said everything.

"The first time humanity made contact with extraterrestrials. Before the Scorch" Kurogane explained. Fai had asked so many questions in the weeks that he'd been there about things that were obvious to everyone else that Kurogane's voice had lost the 'what are you, a moron?' edge to it. Mostly. "Humans met aliens, got too ambitious, and too greedy, and then everything burned."

"Woah," Fai breathed. He had theorised countless times about what the First Contact could have meant. Aliens had occurred to him, but he had written it off almost immediately. Thinking about it now, how could it have been anything else? Mankind had certainly had the technology, if the specs of these common office computers had been anything to go by, "I find that so hard to imagine-"

"Do you?" Kurogane challenged. Fai shut his mouth. He started putting bits into a canvas bag he had brought just for the purpose, leaving the bigger components for later. His hands itched to play with everything, but he was on his last chance with Oasis. He needed to focus on what he'd promised he'd do.

"I'm going to look further in," he said, "there's still something important missing."

"Alright," Kurogane replied. Fai started toward the inner doors, and Kurogane fell easily into step beside him, lighting a small electronic torch that he'd mounted on his shoulder. Wordlessly, Fai pushed open doors and Kurogane shone light inside. There were lots more office-type rooms, some too filled with dust and stagnant air than either of them could stand, and Fai was starting to give up when he finally came across a maintenance cupboard. He started sifting through stuff - bottles of cleaning fluid, a saw, a set of spanners - and finally, finally, found a soldering iron underneath everything. It was, somewhat ironically, powered by electricity, but working solar power was worth draining a battery or two. He opened his mouth to cheer, but was silenced by Kurogane's hand slapping over his mouth.

" _Quiet_ ," Kurogane hissed dangerously. Any retort Fai might've had died in his throat, the commanding tone of Kurogane's voice taking him right back to their first meeting with a sharp throb in his scarred palm, and the hairs on the back of his head stood on end. For the longest time, Fai didn't hear anything. Then, the sound of creaking metal and horrific screeching.

"I wondered where they were," Kurogane said under his breath. He sounded like he was smiling. Fai didn't feel like he could breathe. Against all of Fai's instincts, Kurogane started pulling him back the way they had come- back towards the noises. Fai panicked and tried twisting himself out of Kurogane's hands, and in response, Kurogane shook him hard.

"Get a _grip_ , idiot!" he growled, "if we stay here, where there's no other way out and where we can't see, we haven't got a chance in hell. Get your weapon ready, I don't care which one."

Roughly, he let go of Fai's arm. It stung where the skin had burned under friction, but Fai did as he had been told, lifting the bow up over his head. An arrow hissed out of the quiver, and he followed Kurogane on shaky knees to what he was sure was his death.

Kurogane's sword glinted in the light as he brought it down in a wide arc, bursting into sparks and blue light on contact. In that split-second it looked as if the room had been lit with lightning. Fai saw the features of the creature- it looked like a giant, shiny beetle - in all of its horrifying glory. Fai was overwhelmed with it all, and stood frozen in shock. Another flash, another creature destroyed under Kurogane's blade. There were so many of them, but Kurogane was cutting them down as soon as they appeared. Fai, still frozen, watched as one of the felled creatures managed to pick itself up, and unnoticed behind Kurogane's back, went for the kill. Fai's heart jumped into his throat.

It exploded and fell as if on its own, and Fai's vision went white.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the end of where I had written for the Olympics. Again, I'd like to thank everyone who has read this far, and everyone who rated this fic on DW.


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